© News.com.auOnly one state, NSW, requires childcare centres to ask for proof of vaccination when children enrol.
Only one state, NSW, requires childcare centres to ask for proof of vaccination when children enrol.
And Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory aren't required to ask about immunisation status when children enrol for school, the Federal Department of Health and Ageing has warned.
AMA president Dr Steve Hambleton says parents who don't vaccinate their children should be forced to produce a conscientious objection form.
This extra step is not currently required by schools.
''If they have to fill out a form it means they will have to make a conscious decision about whether they want to vaccinate or not,'' he says.
The act of asking parents to produce the form may be all that is required to prompt them to vaccinate their children, he says.
''We should make it difficult for parents so they do have to think twice about whether they vaccinate their children. As I say they have got a responsibility to their own children and they've got a responsibility to the community's children,'' he said.
The AMA's call came as new data on immunisation shows many local areas in Australia's big cities have such low immunisation rates children are at-risk of catching deadly diseases.
Immunisation experts have blamed the baby Einstein demographic, parents who take an avid interest in their children's development who eat organic and use alternative therapies for the problem.
Dr Hambleton said yesterday he was concerned that chiropractors and homeopaths and other alternative therapists may be misleading parents and dissuading them from immunising their children.
Chiropractors could take a course run by a US anti-immunisation campaigner to gain professional development points, he said.
Homeopathic practitioners who used homeopathic remedies may also be duping some parents, Dr Hambleton said.
''Pretending that does anything is misleading and, sadly, some parents get misled by that and believe they have appropriately vaccinated their child,'' he said.
The Chiropractic Board of Australia is currently investigating courses that have been approved for continuing professional development in the profession and says it is a requirement they be evidence-based.
''The Board will revoke approval for any courses that do not align with the Board's standards,'' the Board said in a statement.
Former Masterchef host Sarah Wilson caused outrage yesterday when she appeared to advocate an anti-immunisation message on Channel 7's Sunrise program.
She told the program research about the efficiency and safety of vaccines was ''not conclusive''.
''I'm not going to take a stance on this myself because I don't know fully but the research is not conclusive,'' she said on the program.
In an earlier tweet she said ''Can someone cit (sic) a double blind crossover placebo study proving vaccines work?''.
Dr Hambleton said he was ''very concerned'' by the remarks.
''People pedalling anti-vaccination messages are hurting our children and they need to be informed,'' he said.
A group of eminent Australian scientists had last year produced a document proving the value of immunisation and ''anyone saying anything different better have the evidence to back it up,'' he said.
Health Minister Tanya Plibersek also expressed concern about the low immunisation rates in some areas.
''The report finds there is a lot of variation in coverage rates at the local level, which indicates some children in some communities are at-risk of contracting diseases such as measles and whooping cough,'' she said.
From July the government will fund a measles vaccination to be given at 18 months of age which will reduce the number of needles a child needs and she hopes this might improve vaccination rates.
Last year 12 eminent scientists including Professor Ian Frazer who invented the cervical cancer vaccine launched a 20-page booklet explaining how many more children will die from diseases like measles, mumps and diphtheria than will be harmed by the side effects of immunisation.
"A group of eminent Australian scientists had last year produced a document proving the value of immunisation and anyone saying anything different better have the evidence to back it up,''
Sounds like a criminal challenging who is so sure that he has destroyed all evidence of his crime,